Are You Going to Watch the Debates?

[Lexicus]

While the idea that Tulsi has connections to Russia is just plain silly, I feel like her campaign amounts to little more than agitprop. Outside of this forum, the only people I've heard speak highly of her are right-wingers who are voting for Trump anyway.
What exactly is her policy besides "not getting involved in aggressive illegal wars"? And why is that a policy instead of the bare minimum we should expect from candidates? She brings nothing to the table and only serves to lower the level of dialogue between the candidates. The longer these debates go on with these nobodies crowding the table, the more the Democrats are just embarassing themselves.

She always qualifies her opposition to wars: "regime change wars," "endless wars," "interventionist wars"...the obvious conclusion is that she isn't really antiwar.
And the bit about "the only people I've heard speak highly of her are right-wingers who are voting for Trump anyway" is right on the money.

 

[Zardnaar]

She always qualifies her opposition to wars: "regime change wars," "endless wars," "interventionist wars"...the obvious conclusion is that she isn't really antiwar.
And the bit about "the only people I've heard speak highly of her are right-wingers who are voting for Trump anyway" is right on the money.

She got some positive press in the Washington Post.

 

[schlaufuchs]

She always qualifies her opposition to wars: "regime change wars," "endless wars," "interventionist wars"...the obvious conclusion is that she isn't really antiwar.
And the bit about "the only people I've heard speak highly of her are right-wingers who are voting for Trump anyway" is right on the money.

Well, them and Jimmy Dore and Michael Brooks and Kyle Kulinski and Kristen Krystal Bell....

That being said, it was much easier to be supportive of (or at least warm towards) her campaign before she pivoted on M4A and came out with some yikesy takes on Modi and Kashmir.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, them and Jimmy Dore and Michael Brooks and Kyle Kulinski and Kristen Bell....

Of these four, I've only ever heard of Jimmy Dore, and this is where I've heard of him:

According to Jimmy Dore

Jimmy Dore was mad as hell

Actually it was Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate and Jimmy Dore who educated me about RussiaGate...

from a Jimmy Dore video

I'm a Jimmy Dore fan.

 

[Kyriakos]

She always qualifies her opposition to wars: "regime change wars," "endless wars," "interventionist wars"...the obvious conclusion is that she isn't really antiwar.
And the bit about "the only people I've heard speak highly of her are right-wingers who are voting for Trump anyway" is right on the money.

Those are 99% of the wars the US is likely to get into

Again, though, Tulsi is obviously not going to be the nomination, so maybe she doesn't warrant that close scrutiny. At least she is more anti-war than the rest, apart from Sanders.

Kyle Kulinski is another Sanders supporter with a popular youtube program.

 

[Lexicus]

That being said, it was much easier to be supportive of (or at least warm towards) her campaign before she pivoted on M4A and came out with some yikesy takes on Modi and Kashmir.

So you don't care about the fact that she paid half a million dollars for digital marketing to a consultant who lives in a remote Washington town with no broadband internet access? My theory is that her campaign is a scam to funnel donor money into the Science of Identity Foundation.

 

[Socrates99]

Of these four, I've only ever heard of Jimmy Dore, and this is where I've heard of him:

Krystal Ball is a former MSNBC host that now cohosts The Hill's Rising. Kyle Kulinski is host of Secular Talk and cofounded Justice Democrats with Cenk Uygur. Michael Brooks is a cohost of Sam Seder's Majority Report, who hyper focuses on foreign policy in his side venture because he figures the main show covers domestic pretty well.

I'd add Kim Iverson, Tim Black, Niko House, Graham Elwood and Jamarl Thomas. All progressive independent media pundits with big followings.

Honestly the only progressive pundit I've seen with as virulently anti Tulsi opinions as you is Ana Kasparian and TYT can sometimes be a little suspect on some issues.

As for Jimmy Dore, hes a former TYT host who left the network to do his own show and standup tours. He does have a following from the right (ie Berserker) who may not agree with him but do see him as someone on the left who will give them straight dope on the Democrat party. Attempting to use Berserker to undermine Jimmy does less to cut Jimmy down than it does to prove Berserker is willing to look outside his bubble for commentary.

 

[schlaufuchs]

The Michael Brooks Show is excellent and well worth checking out. He does a good job of centering the Leftist project within an international lens/framework. He pulls fantastic interview guests, and his weekly post-game segment "The Debunk with [Philosophy professor] Ben Burgis" is typically poignant and hilarious.

 

[Lexicus]

Attempting to use Berserker to undermine Jimmy does less to cut Jimmy down than it does to prove Berserker is willing to look outside his bubble for commentary.

I mean, I was simply noting where I'd heard of the guy. I've never watched his show and never will as I have a firm policy of never consuming any media in the "white man speaking into a camera" genre, so I have no opinion on him.

I've never heard of any of the other names you list, and had to look up what TYT stands for. I generally distrust self-labelled "progressives" and prefer to get my commentary from people willing to use the s-word.

@Owen Glyndwr was there some reason you ignored my post? Do you consider the issue of Tulsi Gabbard's ties to the Science of Identity Foundation not worth addressing? Imo it is related to her "yikesey takes" on Modi, as I believe one of her major career goals is to achieve more mainstream Hindu acceptance for the Science of Identity Foundation, and she hopes to accomplish that by ostentatious toadying to Modi. They also apparently share a virulent bigotry toward Muslims.

 

[Ferocitus]

I thought they ^ couldn't be too bad before I clicked on "Gaudiya Math".
But ISKCON is just a sneaky "rebranding" of the old Hare Krishnas from the 1970's.
The "CON" in their acronym should have rung alarm bells and finger bells.

 

[schlaufuchs]

@Owen Glyndwr was there some reason you ignored my post? Do you consider the issue of Tulsi Gabbard's ties to the Science of Identity Foundation not worth addressing? Imo it is related to her "yikesey takes" on Modi, as I believe one of her major career goals is to achieve more mainstream Hindu acceptance for the Science of Identity Foundation, and she hopes to accomplish that by ostentatious toadying to Modi. They also apparently share a virulent bigotry toward Muslims.

Not really. I don't have any skin in the game for this issue. I didn't have much interest in her as a candidate at the outset, and I definitely don't now that she's pivoted away from the only parts of her policy platform that would have been appealing to me. I was merely pointing out that her presence in the primary discourse is useful because she is one of only two prominent candidates who isn't proposing a continuation, if not an outright acceleration, of rabid American imperialist foreign policy. Or hell, even just a framework that doesn't paint the world as a Manichean virtue-ethics-oriented struggle between the unquestionably "good" NATO against so-called "bad actors" for whom any intervention or sanction is intrinsically righteous or justified.

Again, not saying a support her as a candidate. Merely saying that having a non-Bernie figure going on CNN and MSNBC, or attending the debates and saying, "you know, maybe we shouldn't rush into war with Iran or intervene in Venezuela, and maybe Israel isn't an unequivocally 'good actor' beyond question and above criticism," is a good thing to have in this primary cycle. If Warren or Buttigieg or Kamala or Klobuchar or Steyer or Beto wanted to chime in and take those positions, then I would welcome that, and Tulsi would have far less importance in the primary discourse. But they don't. And they won't. And so we have to take what we can get.

 

[Socrates99]

I mean, I was simply noting where I'd heard of the guy. I've never watched his show and never will as I have a firm policy of never consuming any media in the "white man speaking into a camera" genre, so I have no opinion on him.

I've never heard of any of the other names you list, and had to look up what TYT stands for. I generally distrust self-labelled "progressives" and prefer to get my commentary from people willing to use the s-word.

@Owen Glyndwr was there some reason you ignored my post? Do you consider the issue of Tulsi Gabbard's ties to the Science of Identity Foundation not worth addressing? Imo it is related to her "yikesey takes" on Modi, as I believe one of her major career goals is to achieve more mainstream Hindu acceptance for the Science of Identity Foundation, and she hopes to accomplish that by ostentatious toadying to Modi. They also apparently share a virulent bigotry toward Muslims.

We all know your intention when you invoked Berzerker's name. 4 of those names I mentioned are not white and the majority of them are perfectly fine with calling themselves socialists.

 

[Lexicus]

I thought they ^ couldn't be too bad before I clicked on "Gaudiya Math".
But ISKCON is just a sneaky "rebranding" of the old Hare Krishnas from the 1970's.
The "CON" in their acronym should have rung alarm bells and finger bells.

The Science of Identity Foundation is a cult founded by this guy:

that claims to be Hare Krishna but what this:

It was the 1980s. Greg says he and Tulsi attended these gatherings together, and years later, when Abraham was born, he’d see him too. (Tulsi says that she did not attend gatherings like these.) Waiting four or five or six hours for Siddhaswarupananda’s entrance built a kind of thrilling pressure, and Greg remembers Sundays as “incredibly theatrical.” Devotees with radios would place themselves at various high points along the beach, operating as a security force. “You’re waiting hours and hours for this dude to show up, and then when he does, people go absolutely wild — it’s all your family and all your friends singing and dancing and chanting, you’re so excited,” says Greg. The guru would then address the crowd. He was good with the pregnant pause. He had the kind of easy confidence you’d expect from Krishna’s representative on Earth. He was also vulgar and vindictive. “He would start excoriating people for [screwing] up. Sound systems not working, cups of water not being cleaned, people dressed funny, driving poorly. He would publicly mock people. And when he would do that — that’s a form of Krishna’s mercy.” Everyone I spoke to who was raised in the group described, as children, hearing Butler call men “[redacted homophobic slur]” and women “[redacted sexist slur].” One time in Malibu, Greg recalls, Butler had passed a man on the beach in a thong on his way to the gathering; Butler then described in graphic detail what that man allegedly wanted his “boyfriend” to do to him. “That’s vivid as a kid,” says Greg, whose name is not really Greg; he does not want to be cut off from his family.

has to do with the worship of Krishna, I do not know.

We all know your intention when you invoked Berzerker's name. 4 of those names I mentioned are not white and the majority of them are perfectly fine with calling themselves socialists.

Well, you can assume whatever you want about invoking Berzerker's name, I don't really care. I was simply explaining why I don't watch Jimmy Dore (who, last I checked, is indeed a white man) with the "white man speaking into camera" thing. And, actually, I am intrigued with the idea that "the majority" of those folks are fine calling themselves socialists - who, specifically, is fine with that?

Not really. I don't have any skin in the game for this issue. I didn't have much interest in her as a candidate at the outset, and I definitely don't now that she's pivoted away from the only parts of her policy platform that would have been appealing to me. I was merely pointing out that her presence in the primary discourse is useful because she is one of only two prominent candidates who isn't proposing a continuation, if not an outright acceleration, of rabid American imperialist foreign policy. Or hell, even just a framework that doesn't paint the world as a Manichean virtue-ethics-oriented struggle between the unquestionably "good" NATO against so-called "bad actors" for whom any intervention or sanction is intrinsically righteous or justified.

Again, not saying a support her as a candidate. Merely saying that having a non-Bernie figure going on CNN and MSNBC, or attending the debates and saying, "you know, maybe we shouldn't rush into war with Iran or intervene in Venezuela, and maybe Israel isn't an unequivocally 'good actor' beyond question and above criticism," is a good thing to have in this primary cycle. If Warren or Buttigieg or Kamala or Klobuchar or Steyer or Beto wanted to chime in and take those positions, then I would welcome that, and Tulsi would have far less importance in the primary discourse. But they don't. And they won't. And so we have to take what we can get.

But see, I'm not even sure I can agree that her presence in the primary discourse is useful. She has described herself as a "hawk" when it comes to the war on terror, so I just can't take her anti-imperialist or anti-war stances seriously. I actually fear that she may be hurting those causes by using the memes in ways that are ultimately supportive of the US imperial project. She has given little indication that she is opposed to that project as such, which is why I mentioned the qualifiers she attaches to her antiwar declarations ("regime change wars", "interventionist wars" instead of just "wars" or even something like "imperialist wars").

 

[Kyriakos]

I hope CNN won't use "Greg, whose real name isn't Greg; he just wants to not be cut off from his family" as a source
And thankfully they couldn't take the Hillary smear against Tulsi seriously either. Maybe not even MSNBC did, which should speak volumes...

Srsly, Tulsi is just a fad. She can speak well, and looks nice, so why shouldn't she become somewhat popular? People with neither do, so just one should be enough.
She won't be potus, so too much about nothing, imo.

 

[rah]

Time is passing and no one new is separating themselves from the pack. This leaves us the stale leftovers from the last time.
My biggest nightmare is Hillary swooping in to save us by offering herself up as the compromise candidate.

 

[Socrates99]

The Science of Identity Foundation is a cult founded by this guy:

that claims to be Hare Krishna but what this:


has to do with the worship of Krishna, I do not know.



Well, you can assume whatever you want about invoking Berzerker's name, I don't really care. I was simply explaining why I don't watch Jimmy Dore (who, last I checked, is indeed a white man) with the "white man speaking into camera" thing. And, actually, I am intrigued with the idea that "the majority" of those folks are fine calling themselves socialists - who, specifically, is fine with that?



But see, I'm not even sure I can agree that her presence in the primary discourse is useful. She has described herself as a "hawk" when it comes to the war on terror, so I just can't take her anti-imperialist or anti-war stances seriously. I actually fear that she may be hurting those causes by using the memes in ways that are ultimately supportive of the US imperial project. She has given little indication that she is opposed to that project as such, which is why I mentioned the qualifiers she attaches to her antiwar declarations ("regime change wars", "interventionist wars" instead of just "wars" or even something like "imperialist wars").

AFAIK of those names I listed only Krystal might balk at labeling themselves socialist. I'm also no assuming anything. Any idiot with two brain cells to rub together that's spent time on this forum knew what ticking off a number of Berzerker quotes was supposed to mean.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@rah
I feel like it doesn't matter right now if no one is pulling ahead in the Democratic primary. When the votes come in February we might finally get a breakout candidate. Even if we don't, the the winner can still be clearly decided in the end. Trump was only getting 30-40% of the popular vote in state primaries until April 2016, well after Super Tuesday. He never even got an outright majority of the popular vote in the total combined primaries in the end; he crested at 49% but still became the inevitable pick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries


I will admit to ongoing frustration with the size of the debates.

 

[Ferocitus]

The Science of Identity Foundation is a cult founded by this guy:

that claims to be Hare Krishna but what this:
has to do with the worship of Krishna, I do not know..

Thanks.
I saw a couple of saffron-clad Krishna's prancing about in Berlin about 3 months ago, but I guess they weren't the same as what you're referring to.

We used to go to their free feasts on Saturday afternoons in Adelaide during the Vietnam War days. They never bothered us, never tried to convert us. There were free books on display with some kind of glowing, multi-armed(?) dude on the covers. I just thought they were glum looking dupes at the time. When they were out of direct sight my friends and I made like multi-armed demons ourselves and stuffed as much free food as we could into bags we'd brought.

 

[rah]

@rah
I feel like it doesn't matter right now if no one is pulling ahead in the Democratic primary. When the votes come in February we might finally get a breakout candidate. Even if we don't, the the winner can still be clearly decided in the end. Trump was only getting 30-40% of the popular vote in state primaries until April 2016, well after Super Tuesday. He never even got an outright majority of the popular vote in the total combined primaries in the end; he crested at 49% but still became the inevitable pick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries

Yeah but who beyond the stale one are getting anywhere near 30-40%? No one.
But yeah, something could happen before February. (PLEASE)

 

[Lexicus]

Thanks.
I saw a couple of saffron-clad Krishna's prancing about in Berlin about 3 months ago, but I guess they weren't the same as what you're referring to.

We used to go to their free feasts on Saturday afternoons in Adelaide during the Vietnam War days. They never bothered us, never tried to convert us. There were free books on display with some kind of glowing, multi-armed(?) dude on the covers. I just thought they were glum looking dupes at the time. When they were out of direct sight my friends and I made like multi-armed demons ourselves and stuffed as much free food as we could into bags we'd brought.

I don't know much of anything about Hare Krishna and don't have an opinion on Hare Krishna one way or the other, but we need to be very clear that what I've been talking about in connection with Tulsi Gabbard has pretty much nothing to do with Hare Krishna except insofar as the cult uses the idea that it is a Hare Krishna group to head off criticism.